Edenville Energy restructures board to expand its Rukwa project

Edenville Energy Plc (LON:EDL), the operator of the Rukwa Coal Project in Tanzania, has announced a restructuring of its Board as the Company looks to expand its Rukwa project to benefit from the increased demand and pricing for its coal, together with exploring other opportunities to broaden the Company’s operations.

Alistair Muir and Jeff Malaihollo have stepped down with immediate effect from their roles as Chief Executive Officer and Non-Executive Chairman respectively. Jeff Malaihollo has agreed to stay on as a consultant to the Company for the next three months to ensure a smooth transition.

Noel Lyons has been appointed as the Company’s new Chief Executive Officer and Paul Ryan as an Executive Director.  Nick von Schirnding has been appointed Non-Executive Chairman. In addition, Andre Hope will join the Board as a Non-Executive Director.  Following this restructuring, the Board of the Company will comprise Nick von Schirnding (Non-Executive Chairman), Noel Lyons (Chief Executive Officer), Paul Ryan (Executive Director), Franco Caselli (Non-Executive Director) and Andre Hope (Non-Executive Director).

It is the intention of the incoming executive Board members to spend significant time in Tanzania and retain and relocate certain experienced personnel from other existing African coal operations, which they are associated with, to Tanzania. A more comprehensive update on this will be provided in the near future.

Background on the incoming directors

Mr Lyons is an operational executive with over 30 years direct experience in the oil, gas and mining sector mainly in Africa and the Middle East. His experience is primarily on the operational side including strategic management, operations, project management, funding and value creation generally with listed companies. He is the founder of Clean Invest Africa plc, a company focused on delivering an attractive return through acquiring stakes in clean energy companies, remediation technologies, waste-to-energy technologies and other clean energy related projects.

Mr Ryan has over 20 years of commercial, regulatory and advisory experience. Mr Ryan has acted as a consultant, primarily on strategy and public policy, to a range of clients including FTSE100 and Fortune 500 companies largely in the ICT space. He held a variety of board positions with leading mobile operator Vodafone Group. Mr Ryan has many years of experience working in sub-Saharan Africa including South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Ghana where he lived for a number of years. Since 2018 Mr Ryan has been involved with a clean coal project through Clean Invest Africa plc whose subsidiary CoalTech has an operational coal facility in South Africa. Mr Ryan is a qualified solicitor in the UK and graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

Mr Hope has a wealth of experience as an adviser and consultant to governments and major corporates across Africa over the last 30 years. During this time, he has developed an extensive network of relationships throughout Africa.  He holds a degree in Law from Brunel University and was called to the Bar of England & Wales in 1981. Mr Hope served as Non- Executive Chairman of Ecobank (SL) Ltd., an affiliate of Ecobank Transnational, one of the leading African banks with operations in 36 countries across the continent, and he currently serves as a NonExecutive director of Rokel Commercial Bank (SL) Ltd., formerly Barclays Bank (SL) Ltd.

Noel Lyons, Chief Executive Officer, commented:

“I am delighted to be joining the Edenville Board. Given my ongoing operational experience in Africa I believe we are well positioned to optimise the proposed expansion of Rukwa, both in terms of production rates and sales. I look forward to providing shareholders with a more comprehensive update on this in the near future.”

Nick von Schirnding, Chairman, commented:

“I welcome Noel as our new CEO who, together with Paul, has a clear strategy in place to upgrade the Rukwa Project and drive shareholder value going forward. On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Alistair and Jeff for their efforts over these past years in what have been difficult times for the Company. They leave the Company on a stronger financial footing and I wish them the best in their future endeavours.”

Further information on Director appointments:

The following details in relation to the new Director appointments are disclosed in accordance with AIM Rule 17 and Schedule 2(g) of the AIM Rules:

Noel Lyons (aged 55) has held the following directorships and/or partnerships in the past five years.

As part of his remuneration package, Mr Lyons will receive 500,000 warrants at an exercise price of 25p each, valid for 5 years from date of issue. The warrants will be issued in three tranches, with the first 166,667 issued upon his appointment. The second tranche of 166,667 will be issued on achieving production of 4,000tpm washed coal for 3 consecutive months, and the final tranche of 166,666, on achieving 8,000tpm or achieving £1m of net earnings in a financial year.

Paul Benedict Ryan (aged 54) has held the following directorships and/or partnerships in the past five years.

Mr Ryan was a director of Circle Network (Europe) Limited (Ireland) that was placed into administrative receivership in 2001. The deficit to unsecured creditors amounted to approximately £500,000.

As part of his remuneration package, Mr Ryan will receive 500,000 warrants at an exercise price of 25p each, valid for 5 years from date of issue. The warrants will be issued in three tranches, with the first 166,667 issued upon his appointment. The second tranche of 166,667 will be issued on achieving production of 4,000tpm washed coal for 3 consecutive months, and the final tranche of 166,666, on achieving 8,000tpm or achieving £1m of net earnings in a financial year.

Andre Thomas Hope (aged 66) has held the following directorships and/or partnerships in the past five years.

As of the date of this announcement, Mr Hope holds no ordinary shares or options in the Company.

There is no further information to be disclosed under Schedule Two, paragraph (g) of the AIM Rules for Companies.